A new life, a new failure
by tailsauthor
Summary: Around him was nearly everything, a bar, washing-saloons, stores wherever you look, a huge bank having the biggest screen on Mobius on its front side showing news all day. Sometimes Tails hoped, walking by there the last weeks, to see someone of his old friends in the TV searching for him, but nothing happened.


It was a nice morning in summer when Tails woke up by the warm sunshine falling through the big windows of his home. But he never felt like being at home. Maybe the reason is him having moved in just three weeks ago, but most probably it's him feeling guilty for having left the others behind. He got up, did some stretching and searched for his schedule on the messy desk, going past his cupboard and some clothes lying on the floor, folded neatly by the vendor he bought them from yesterday. Last night he just wanted to sleep – no more thinking for the right shelf for suchlike colored shirts. His eyes met a framed picture of him and the others at his latest birthday party. Tails turned twelve back then. Everybody was happy, everybody was laughing, and everything was fine back then. Knuckles was having an argument with Rouge while Amy, Cream and Cheese were eating some cake on the red sofa of his old residence making Tails chuckle, because it is the first time he remarked its color fitting to nothing in the room at all. Tears started to form in the young fox's eyes, but he suppressed the feeling to start crying. He saw Sonic and himself playing a game of cards, probably Sonic was winning again. He was a very good tactician even though it never seemed this way. Shadow wasn't to see in the picture, because he shot it, but he was very kind that day, too. And now…

He finally found the schedule he was looking for and checked if there is any upcoming appointment today. Nothing at all, simply the way it was the last two weeks. Life slowed down with the others not being around and there was nothing to do, too. He wasn't in the mood to search for a new place to build a workshop at, he wasn't in the mood to look for new company, and he wasn't in the mood to do anything at all. Starring through the room he noticed some more untouched boxes with stuff of his old place. They weren't worth a look; he shouldn't have taken them with him at all. All those memories of his old life, the life he wanted to get rid of, the life he wasn't satisfied with anymore. A minute later Tails broke his rigidity and headed to the door not risking a look at anything more in the room, opening the door, leaving the room and closing it again. _What a relief_ he thought heading to the bathroom. It was on the opposite of his flat. The flat he first was scared of, because it was in the loft of this large apartment building. Its basement didn't look trustworthy, but it was the only flat available in this town being far enough away from everybody he knew. It would take months for Sonic and the others to get a trace.

The rest of his flat was completely blank – just carpeted floors, except of the hallway where a new cellphone was lying with a charging cable plugged in near the front door and some documents filled with useless information like how to use it were spread over the floor. Of course he knew how to use it and if not, he is smart enough to figure this out on his own, so there was no need for those papers but he definitely needed a new cellphone, so the others couldn't try to contact him this way. Walking to the bathroom he steps on the box of the cellphone picking it up he saw a little notebook on the inside. He hid it here, so he wouldn't find it so easily again, but he didn't want to throw it away and he couldn't resist having a look now. Instantly – like it being an instinct – he started crying like he did back when he was younger. On the front page of the notebook was a picture of Sonic ruffling Tails hair, both smiling, being happy just the way everything used to be. Tails collapsed to his knees, tears floating down his face. He wanted to brush them away so badly, but he couldn't. He couldn't because even though he didn't want to cry, it was the most comfortable feeling since he moved to this new cage he is kept in, nobody helping him out. He leaned his back against the wall, so that he saw his future living room. He tried to think of something else, he tried to think of how to color all those innocent, white walls in every room later. Nothing worked, there was no way for him to focus his thoughts on anything else than his old life. The life he could never return to. Usually Sonic was there to comfort Tails if he had something on his mind, if something went wrong, if he needed somebody to cheer him up, if he got beaten up by some bullies again, if he wanted to end his life once more for being a useless freak. And if it wasn't Sonic, there was always somebody else to help him out of his afflictions.

Out of the sudden Tails stopped crying, started feeling guilty for his own miserable, angry to himself, a feeling he never felt before, a huge burden on his shoulders. He just wanted to let go of. He stood up straight and threw his notebook across the hallway running into his bedroom again, this time not closing the door – there was no time to loose – madly looking for his matches. As soon as he found them he went in the hallway, lit a match and burned the notebook.

It was relieving at first, seeing those mighty, wonderful flames destroying his written-down memories of his old life, erasing the phone numbers of his friends he wrote down years ago so carefully and with it, their pictures and birthdates. He was dependent on this notebook to contact his friends ever again. He wasn't good at recognizing phone numbers, birthdates and things like this. So he wrote them down excluding Sonic's birthdate and phone number, those were too essential to Tails to just write down. He wanted to recognize them, never forget about them. Well, before he decided to leave at least, before he needed to leave. Now it's just a leftover he cannot forget about, but still Tails felt the burden dissolve slowly. When he came back to senses, he saw what was really happening. He wasn't just burning his notebook and information about his old life, but he was burning the carpet below him, too. Clearheaded he ran into the small bathroom took the tumble he usually uses to flush his mouth after brushing his teeth lying on the ceramic sink, filled it with water and extinguished his flames of exemption.

Tails clinical went into the bathroom, took a nice shower, dried him and left his flat to get something for breakfast. In the dirty staircase he met a likely same-aged fox, as well on his way to the front door of the building. He was little taller than Tails, his fur was light-blue, except for his stomach that was colored in a light brown like his tail tip. When he saw Tails, his previously joyful face turned into a disgusted on. Tails knows the other fox has seen his two tails and decided to not speak to him.

Outside he headed down the street to his favorite bakery. He liked it there, because the staff didn't know him by now, so they didn't know what Tails wanted to order and they never asked for his name. It was very impersonal, exactly the way he wanted everything to be right now. If they ever asked for his name, he would tell them politely, but never come back again. A mature rabbit wanted to take his order, but got interrupted by the owner of the bakery. The owner was an older rabbit and he seemed to be the father of the younger one.

"Hey, don't you see there is a customer waiting? Who do you think you are, keeping him waiting?" he shouted threw the shop.

"Calm down, I just wanted to take his order now, just leave me alone!" the younger one answered.

"How dare you speak to me this way? I'm the one who raised you! You wouldn't even exist without me anymore. Don't you remember? Your mother got you to me, son, to take care of you, because she wanted to leave the country, she never wanted you. You know that." the father smirked gleeful.

Hearing this, Tails was about to cry again. He ran out of the shop hearing the rabbit's father shouting after him

"Where are you going? Don't you want to order something?"

No response. In the meantime, the temperature outside dropped some degree and it started raining. The streets were very old and slowly filled with rain. By now every by-driving car splashed water on the pavement. Tails was nearly in the center of the city. Around him was nearly everything, a bar, washing-saloons, stores wherever you look, a huge bank having the biggest screen on Mobius on its front side showing news all day. Sometimes Tails hoped, walking by there the last weeks, to see someone of his old friends in the TV searching for him, but nothing happened. It's just like they forgot about him completely at the day he left.

Those thoughts and the conversation between the two backers drove him crazy. He never intended to have a fight with Sonic, so he left before the situation escalated. Tears were forming in his eyes again while he ran to his apartment trying to suppress this feeling of worthlessness.


End file.
